Predictor Pete - Wild Card Weekend

The Bucs play the Redskins in today's first wildcard game of the post season. This game is an exciting rematch of the Bucs 36-35 win over the Redskins in week nine, when Mike Alstott converted a two point conversion to put the Bucs in the lead with minutes remaining.

Its always tough to beat the same team twice in a season, but the first game was so close I don't know how well that applies.

No one has expected the Bucs to be here. And, from the media, no one thinks they'll continue on. The media all want Joe Gibss, Redskins coach, to take his team deep into the playoffs so they can spew nostalgic on his triumphant return.

We'll see about that.

The game will be decided at the line of scrimmage. Both teams have solid running games, both teams have good quarterbacks, both teams have a speedy, dominant receiver. Both teams have very good defenses that are coordinated by the top defensive minds in the league... Kiffin for the Bucs and Williams for the Redskins.

So, the game should be decided by execution... which team stops the run and which team does not. Turnovers and third downs will continue to play a part as well.

This game scares me a bit, but I think that a home playoff game is pretty big. The young players on the Bucs offense need to stay focused and not get to into the moment. They need to approach this game the way they've attacked their games all year long.

In the end, as a Buc fan, I have to believe they will win this home game.

My Mind: Bucs 31-20.
My Heart: Bucs 24-10.
My Colon: Redskins 21-17.

My Prediction: Bucs 23 Reskins 17.

Mural Complete

My wife finished to mural last night, below is the picture.

Hopefully my children will realize just how blessed they are to live in such a large and talented family. Thanks again, Catherine!

Murals And Family

One of the perks of coming from a large family is that there is a multitude of talents at your disposal... diamonds in the rough, so to speak. The past year my wife and I have been working on a lot of changes to our house. We spent months converting my office into a home theater, we created a recreation/school room and swapped the kids room.

We had trouble figuring out what to do with our daughter's room, so we asked my niece Laura, a UF grad and interior designer, if she could throw something together. The end result was using a lot of dynamic colors and streamlined furniture to give the room life and space.

In my son's room, I decided I wanted to do something unique so I came up with the idea of painting a mural. I'm not a painter, per se, but I thought I'd give it a shot. If it didn't turn out well, then we could always just paint over it. Since my son is a sports nut I used some local sports figures to create the following picture.

I then printed the picture onto a transparency and projected it onto the wall. I outlined the picture, including separation of shades, etc. The wall remained in this state for a while until we completed the home theater weeks ago. During the holidays my niece Catherine was visiting with her sisters, Merrill and Laura, the aforementioned designer. As they were seeing all of the changes to the house I asked Catherine, a tremendous artist, if she would wanted to paint the mural before she headed back to school. To my surprise and delight, she said yes.

So, she drove up and spent two straight days painting the wall... her work is so amazing. She could make a LOT of money doing this for others. Below are some pics of the progress.

The hardest part was getting the fabric right.
Catherine said "when you look at fabric,
you see a hundred different colors."
I replied... "I only see four. I'm glad you're doing this."

I helped out with the easy work. My motto... "Quantity over Quality."

Catherine painted for almost two straight days.
She says she's slow. I say she's good.

Catherine standing in front of the 99% finished mural.
My wife and I will finish the banner.

The best part of the experience, however, was just spending time with Catherine. She is such a strong, quiet person who is very caring and extremely talented. We spent hours painting and talking... it was a lot of fun. My wife and I will finish up the banner at the top of the painting this weekend and we're finding out what we could apply over the top of the painting to protect it from damage. The overall result is far better than I ever could have achieved or imagined.

Thanks Catherine!

Time Changer (2002)

Time Changer is an intriguing Christian film about a professor from the 1890's who travels in time to modern day to see the moral decline that has taken place. The professor, played by D. David Morin, has written a book that states we should be diligent to point out wrong from right in society. However, another professor, portrayed by Gavin MacLeod, takes issue with this one portion of the manuscript because it does not emphatically tie Jesus Christ to the moments where we point out wrong from right.

In other words, instead of telling someone they should not steal, we should tell them that they should not steal because of Jesus Christ.

MacLeod states "Satan doesn't have issue with good morals, he has issue with Jesus Christ." He argues to disassociate Christ with morals will lead to what we now call moral relativism. To make his point, MacLeod sends Morin into the future, via a H.G. Wells-esque time machine where moral relativism is in full swing.

The process of discovery by Morin's character in modern day society on the changing and lessening of moral truths is an eye-opening experience. We should be offended by movies where God's name is spoken in vain. We should be offended by slipping moral values in society. We should be offended that God cannot be spoken of in public institutions. We should be offended by disinterest in church and the amoral behavior prevalent on television and the internet.

But we are not.

And that's the point of the film. By walking us through this "old fashioned" view from the perspective of a 1890s bible scholar we are given insight into our own passivity toward the current moral decline in our country. It makes you think to the reasons why we've let things get so bad and how we could possibly recover and move us back to our moral center.

The film was made for approximately $800,000 and looks like it was made for much more. The film is Christian without being preachy, which is good. The look of the film is really wonderful and cinematographer Philip Hurn should be commended on making the imagery look like a multi-million dollar project.

The films was written and directed by Rich Christiano and the story really excels once we reach modern day. The time leading up to that point is slow and the acting and dialogue somewhat stilted. I know the dialogue was meant to reflect the speaking habits of the day, but the actors were not able to make all of those lines ring true.

One of the things I am adamant about when it comes to low budget films is that, to me, it is better to have the right unknown cast of actors than known actors miscast in lead roles. I am reluctant to find films with B-movie actors anything other than B-movies... the film may be more marketable in certain distribution areas with these B-movie actors, but having B-movie actors can often times limit the perceived excellence of the film. I think if you can make a low budget film with a great script and the right cast of unknown actors then you have a chance of accruing critical underdog status. This is a risky option because if you do not receive critical acclaim then you are left with a film less marketable than if you had had B-movie actors in your film. Its a paradox every low budget filmmaker must consider when putting together their project.

That being said, I found the casting of Time Changer with lesser "known" actors to be right on the mark, for the most part. Gavin MacLeod, Hal Linden, Jennifer O'Neill and Paul Rodriguez are well cast and their performances are quite good. D. David Morin struggles at times with the main character of Russel Carlisle, but really gets into his own in the fish-out-of-water moments when the story hits modern day.

Though not perfect, this film certainly is head and shoulders above almost all of the Christian films I've seen recently. It's a film that will spark a lot of conversation and should be watched by the whole family.

I only hope more Christian films will see this film and use the quality of this production as a starting point for their own films in the future.

I'm Creatively SEVERED

Well, the painful writing process has officially begun. Today I drafted the first pages to a new feature screenplay called SEVERED. The screenplay will be a Christian action-thriller about terrorists, if you can believe it.

Starting to write is a huge thing. Most writers procrastinate because the process of writing is like giving creative birth, long, painful and can cause bloating. However, there comes a point in the process where it is equally painful to wait as it is to write... at that point you know you have to start writing and purge yourself of the creative ideas flowing through your head or else you'll burst.

So, after much thought, delay, inspiration, delay, planning and delay, I finally started penning the first draft of the script.

My goal is to write at least one feature screenplay a year. Last year I did not write a feature so this year my goal is to write at least two, perhaps three.

King Kong (2005)

My film-nut daughter and I spent three and a half quality hours in the movie theater this weekend watching Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong. The film is enjoyable and refreshing, which is suprising since everyone knows how the movie is going to end.

My only gripe was that the film could have cut a good 15 minutes out of the beginning of the movie. I appreciated the fact that they were trying to layer in character depth to the story, but when you're waiting for them to reach the island and meet Kong, all of that stuff really felt longer than was comfortable. Perhaps it was like watching water boil... you know it'll boil eventually, but time seems to slow while you're waiting.

The special effects and choregraphy of the action sequences are pretty amazing. The computer recreation of 1930's New York was visually impressive as well. And the emotional connection between Kong and the damsel in distress, Naiomi Watts, was very effective. Plus, the technology they used to create Kong is groundbreaking. They attached 150 sensors to an actor which fed a computer and created the animation of Kong in real time. I'm sure they fine tune the animation in post production, but the technology itself is great stuff.

Its a worthy of film and you should check it out if you can.

Is Hollywood Actively Anti-Christian? You Decide.

NBC is kicking off a new show this Winter called The Book of Daniel. I'm not going to judge the show itself until I actually see it, but one has to wonder just what focus group enticed Hollywood to think that this show is a good idea. Here's the official summary of the show from NBCs website:

Emmy nominee Aidan Quinn stars as Reverend Daniel Webster, an unconventional Episcopalian minister who not only believes in Jesus - he actually sees him and discusses life with him. Webster is challenged on many levels as he struggles to be a good husband, father and minister, while trying to control a nagging addiction to prescription painkillers, and an often rocky relationship with the church hierarchy, led by Bishop Beatrice Congreve (Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn), Roger Paxton, a senior warden of the parish and stalwart churchgoer (Dylan Baker).

The reverend also has loving, but challenging relationships with his three children: Peter (Christian Campbell), his 23-year-old gay son, who struggles with the loss of his twin brother; Grace (Alison Pill), his 16-year-old daughter who doesn't try to push her father's buttons but succeeds at it nonetheless; and Adam (Ivan Shaw), his 16-year-old adopted Chinese son, a handsome and cocky high school jock with a wicked sense of humor. Keeping Webster grounded is his strong and loving wife Judith (Susanna Thompson), who is fighting her own fondness for mid-day martinis, as well as Jesus (Garret Dillahunt), whose frequent chats with Daniel serve to remind him of his strengths and weaknesses.

Again, at this point I'm not saying the show will be good or bad, but it seems obvious by the show description that Hollywood doesn't give a crap about the dreaded "red state" Americans. The sheer fact that "red state" Americans represented the majority of the nation, you would think that Hollywood would want to make money off of all of those viewers by tapping into what the conservative viewer feels is important. And after the success of The Passion of the Christ, you would think Hollywood would be more in tune or more considerate of the feelings of Christians and create films and TV shows to take advantage of that untapped market. After all, Hollywood is all about money and Passion made more money than Hollywood ever imagined.

Creating a show like The Book of Daniel reaffirms one thing... Hollywood does not have a clue as to how to reach Christian Americans. Otherwise they would.

American interests are dynamic and varied. Hollywood has a big struggle to try and identify what the average American will like next. Once they find out, everyone sucks that market dry by sending out multiple copies of the same thing.

Gladiator is a success? Let's make Troy, Alexander and Kingdom of Heaven.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire is a success? Let's make Greed and Weakest Link.

Survivor is a success? Let's make Amazing Race, The Apprentice, The Bachelor and Wife Swap.

Once something makes money, Hollywood will tap that money geiser for all its worth.

So, The Passion of the Christ comes out and fills an aching void of Christian film fans. It makes a gabillion dollars. And how many Hollywood films came out afterwards that dealt with Christ in a postive manner?

None.

Why? Because they don't know how. Otherwise they would have. They worship money above all things, yet they didn't have an inkling on how to make money off of Passion.

Hollywood studios purchase tens of thousands of screenplays and idea pitches every year, yet only make a couple hundred films. That means they have libraries of scripts just waiting to be made. They are just waiting for the public to direct them on which films into which they should invest their money. The public directs them with their wallets.

So, Hollywood's lesson from the success of The Passion of the Christ? To make The Book of Daniel? That's what they learned? To have a show about a reverend with a drug addiction, with a gay son, an alcoholic wife and who sees Jesus in person? That's what they came up with? That's what their billion dollar industry reseach departments were able to garner from the success of Mel Gibson's film?

Pathetic.

It just goes to show just how blatantly out of touch they truly are. Or, if you are of a more cynical mindset, it shows how Hollywood is actively trying to undermine the faith of those who valued Passion by showing people of faith in weakened and non-Christian positions.

Either way, it only validates the idea that Hollywood is no friend to faithful Christians. Could you imagine such a show being presented with the main character being a Jewish Rabbi or a Muslim Cleric? Please! It's absurd. But because it's a Christian reverend that makes it okay? No, that makes it hypocrisy.

As for the actual show, The Book of Daniel, I'll reserve judgement until I watch an episode. But, for the apparent lack of understanding to what the conservative, average American really wants out of their entertainment, it appears Hollywood isn't interested if it involves a positive representation of Christ, no matter how much money they'll lose.

And that is something that should concern all of us.

It's All In The Interpretation

My son got some new Playstation games for Christmas and has spent an inordinate amount of time on the game machine. After some heavy playing time, I told my son that he needed to turn the game off and use his brain in other ways. I said:

"I want you to read a book or something. I don't care what you read, just read something."

Gabe turned off the game and I went into the other room. When I went back to check on him about 15 minutes later I found him sitting next to a stack of all of the Playstation game instructions.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"You said I could read anything, so I'm reading about how to play the games" he replied.

I smiled and said... "that's not what I meant." But it was what I said and he called me on it. At some point all kids are more into the letter of the law over the spirit of the law.

The Last Breather

Well, today ends the last the mutliple days off work for quite some time. So, I will enjoy it with my famiily and try not to think of the million things waiting for me at the office this week.

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to wish everyone a very happy and blessed New Year.

May 2006 bring you peace and prosperity!